6 Takeaways from Today’s IPCC Report on Climate Impacts and Adaptation
Today the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) unveiled a new report that paints a troubling picture of how climate impacts are already more widespread, occurring earlier and are far worse than expected. The report finds that every fraction of a degree of additional warming will escalate threats to people, species and ecosystems and that adaptation is crucial to reduce risks and limit irreversible losses and damages as much as possible. Changing course will require immediate, ambitious and concerted efforts to slash emissions, scale up adaptation and provide funding to address loss and damage. The COP27 summit, which will be held in Egypt in November 2022, offers a prime opportunity for governments to make progress on all of these fronts and for developed countries to demonstrate their solidarity with vulnerable countries.
Read WRI’s 6 big takeaways from the IPCC report.
US Sea Level Set to Rise by a Foot by 2050
A chilling new report by a group of United States government agencies has predicted the devastating consequences of sea level rise along U.S. coastlines. It warns that the US will face at least 10 inches of sea level rise over the next 30 years which will leave 10 of millions of Americans vulnerable to flooding. Relatedly, a new study published in Nature Communications has pinpointed the year when sea levels first started rising. The study, which used a global database of sea level records spanning the last 2,000 years, found that modern rates of sea level rise begin to emerge in 1863. The study aims to inform regional and local response plans to future sea level rise.
A flooded street in Minota, North Dakota leaving more than 4,000 homes inundated by flooding. Photo by: DVIDSHUB. / U.S. Air Force
New Global Methane Tracker Shows Emissions are 70% Higher Than Expected
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) Global Methane Tracker shows that that global methane emissions from the oil, gas and coal sectors are about 70% greater than the amount governments have officially reported and methane emissions from the energy sector grew by 5% last year. The analysis underscores the need for greater monitoring efforts and for countries to actual deliver on their commitments made at COP26 and beyond. Want to know more about this potent greenhouse gas and how it can be reduced? ReadWRI’s Insights article published late last year.
"Baby Beach" with oil refineries in the background, Aruba. Photo by: Spencer Thomas
Resource Spotlight: Tracking and Comparing National Climate Commitments on Climate Watch
Climate Watch has added new functionality to its NDC Enhancement Tracker that allows users to directly compare a country's updated NDC with a previous one and see which ways countries revised their targets (e.g. via mitigation ambition, GHG targets, sectoral targets, policy, adaptation and transparency). You can also use Explore NDCs to dive even deeper. You can also track and compare countries long-term strategies at any time with Explore LTS and uncover the details of countries’ net-zero targets using the Net-Zero Tracker.